Viral Glyph

Chapter 1

RUZ WER DAN

You haunt me again—why now?

How will I ever know you intimately?

I know your sound but not your meaning, your shape but not your face.

I search the sources over and over, interrogate experts, scour the Internet, leap to every ridiculous conclusion imaginable, run into brick walls and dead ends, give up, despair, and start all over again.

RUZ. Rose, rise, red wine?

WER, DAN. Surname or given name? Nickname? Company name? Abbreviation or initialization, palindrome, anagram? Encrypted message? 3+3+3 = 9? WTF?

I know that I must find you out, no matter what it takes, no matter how long it takes.

She warned me not to look for you, in that split second of compassion.

She said that the day I find you will be my last.

Considering the source, I must believe it.

But I won’t give up. I can’t.

RUZ WER DAN

I’m coming for you.

“But whoever translates it—the glory, the immortality! Can you imagine it?”

Gatsby ran her fingertips across the spines, luxuriating in leather and vellum and antiquity, as she paced the length of the bookcase and ignored him. The office was cramped with dark walnut bookshelves. Sunlight poured in through ceiling-high windows that he had propped open at the bottom edge. The University of Cambridge spring term was in full swing. She heard a soccer team punting and shouting with exuberance, and remembering the same enthusiasm of her undergraduate years at Blake brought a smile to her face.

Ram Balasubramani—Roman to his friends—puffed on a briar pipe that still had the price sticker on the bowl, and the office began to darken with Borkum Riff Bourbon smoke. As he propped an elbow on the desk, bumping the computer keyboard askew, his expression hinted at verbal jousting. “Goes without saying. The language has tormented translators for almost four thousand years.”

And one phrase has tormented me for four decades. RUZ WER DAN. Livia’s face, Hollywood perfect, flitted through her mind.

She shoved it away and felt herself submerge in the book titles: Sumerian pottery. Iron Age peat corpses. Egyptian hieroglyphics, the “sacred writing” system developed around 4000 BCE. Paleolithic tools. The solstice markers at Stonehenge. The bath houses of Mohenjo-daro. It was his world and hers: all things buried, dusty, and dead, methodically resurrected with horsehair brushes and software.

Among the innumerable shards and mummies and tablets, there was nothing equal to it. One Disk, across all human history and treasures. ONE.

She stopped, slowly sucking in air as she saw it. At eye level, stashed between The Great Egyptian Pyramids, Vols. I–II, the ceramic plate stood vertical on a brass tripod. Her gaze moved over the easily identifiable symbols—flowers, birds, fish, dogs, boats—and those less literal, portraying what might be fire or water, a cave or a robe, a fork or a serpent’s tongue. When Luigi Pernier discovered it in 1908, researchers learned that the clay type was commonly used in the city of Phaistos, and they dubbed it the Phaistos Disk.

Would a scribe in 1850 BCE be so driven to record on this small clay tablet? And what the hell do I have to do to unlock its message?

Roman cleared his throat. “As I said, I appreciate your drive all the way from London. My new course is contested archeology. Slated for the spring. A full segment focuses on the Phaistos Disk, and there was only one person to call on as a guest expert.”

She turned, giving him a wan smile. “That’s what I am, an expert?”

“False modesty, GM?” He rolled his eyes “Unseemly, and I’ve known you long enough to recognize it.” Sitting taller in the chair, he propped the pipe on his lower lip and seemed to be trying for stateliness. He pulled in his stomach muscles. His daily runs around the campus kept him trim, even though he was known among the faculty as a bottomless pit when presented with his favorite Indian dish, tikka masala with paneer. Since joining the Office of Archeology at Cambridge two years ago, he maneuvered his way into Gatsby’s orbit and pestered her with lunch invitations.

As she looked down the shelf, something caught her eye: a program from an academic conference, nestled between the cartouche bookend and a hardback on medieval artillery. The cover included a photo of a forty-something woman with hazel eyes. Her hair, dark as organic cocoa powder, fell to her shoulders. She wore a fitted suit and taunted the lens with look that said but I never got caught. 

She skimmed the credits below the photo: monographs for the American Journal of Archaeology, Archaeology Magazine, Review of Archaeology, and The London Museum of Archaeology, contributions to three textbooks that were adopted at six universities, and the title of lead consultant for the British Museum’s Department of Orthography and Translation. The sidebar noted, Dr. Donovan is a ten-year member of the Vanderbilt Racquetball Club and has consistently achieved Gold Circle standings.

But not an Aeon. Her smile faded. Livia’s precious Aeon, her Nobel and crucifix and Iron Maiden all in one.

She tugged the program free. “For god’s sake, Roman.”

Smiling a little, he looked down into his lap. “Well. I have been known to keep memorabilia of my colleagues. Come on, have a seat and tell me how many years this damn artifact has possessed you.” He pointed at her daypack.

“Too many. It’s all my free time, when I’m not writing for the societies or attending conferences. The American Society of Epigraphy is hounding me for a third lecture at its summer symposia, did you know that?” She stretched her hand toward the Disk but, just before her fingertip connected, drew her hand back and stuffed it in the pocket of her jeans. “It may take a lifetime to decipher the bastard, or it may never be deciphered, because there are no other samples.”

The only one of its kind. Like the last of a species that could disappear in a blink. Extinct. The thought made her swallow. She stared at the object that had become her life’s singularity. Her gaze wandered over the spiral of symbols that, after almost four millennia, remained a mystery. “The most perplexing message of all time, but I’ll go to my grave before I give up.”

(Never give up!!)

Her hand crept to the pendant that lay against her breastbone: a hematite disk the diameter of a liquor shot glass, hanging on a fine gold chain. She gently tugged it from the neck of her polo shirt and held it toward him. “Roman, did I ever tell you the story about this?”

He waved toward a damask wingback chair by the desk. “Sit. Tell.” 

The daypack hanging from her shoulder bulged with books from her home office. She sank into the chair and let her pack slide to the floor. As she moved, he watched her separate the air, as if parting warm water, noted how her hair flowed around her neck, immersed in the supple curves of her shoulders and waist. A sigh pushed its way up his chest and dissipated.

“A week after I turned seventeen, a package arrived. No name, no return address, no note, nothing but a small box with this inside.” The tip of her index finger lightly brushed the engraved markings: a circle with seven dots, a flower with eight petals. “My father and Livia,” she felt her lips tighten, “my stepmother, wondered if I had some secret admirer, but I didn’t. No one in my family knew anything about it or what the marks meant, but it was so mysterious that it ignited my interest in ancient writing. I’ve worn it ever since. When I attended Faucounau’s symposium on the Phaistos Disk, I learned that these same marks are found on the Disk. That was it—a lifelong obsession.” She gave him a tight smile. “We all need one, right?”

(What is your place in history?)

(What will YOU be remembered for?!)

For surviving teenagehood with you, Livia, you gold-plated bitch. Leave me alone. A cramp flared in her belly. When will I exorcize that voice? Christ!

A memory flashed through her: storming out the front door of her family home in West Seattle, fiery with teenage angst. “Gatsby, stop!” The shift in Livia’s voice—muted, almost trembling—as she murmured, “RUZ WER DAN...”

That was the only time she ever spoke to me with tenderness. Was it sincere or just one of her manipulative mind games?

She glanced at Roman’s desk; the mountain of paperwork spoke of curriculum design rather than vacation. She could imagine him, over the next few months, banging away on a medieval Selectric typewriter while she emailed PDF documents to the International Journal of Language and Epigraphy.

Roman pushed up the sleeves of his sweater and picked up a pen as if preparing to take notes. “The Disk. Now tell me, what are the extant theories?”

She rolled her eyes. “How long do you have? There are hundreds of theories, and every would-be Champollion…”

“Who?”

“Jean-François Champollion, credited with decipherment of the Rosetta Stone. Every linguistic wannabe claims that his translation is indisputable. It could be an alternate Mycenaean Greek or ancient Minoan. It’s claimed to be a prayer, an epic hero poem, a calendar, a board game…let’s see, a language primer, a call to war, an astrological map. Some nutcase in Australia says it’s a portal to a parallel universe.” She snorted. “Shall I go on?”

“Absolutely!” He scribbled on a ruled notepad. “And the spiral design? Most writing systems are horizontal, right to left or vice versa, but how did the artist draw the symbols in a spiral shape? More important, why?”

She propped one boot atop the opposite knee. “He could have affixed the tablet to a wheel with a hub. Most likely, it was turned by hand, because the symbols weren’t drawn, they were imprinted with stamps, the same way that the metal keys punched out letters on manual typewriters. It’s the first movable type. The first typewriter, you could say. Staller has some good color images. Here, I’ll show you.” She hefted the backpack from the floor, pawed through it, and lifted out a book.

As she pushed the papers on Roman’s desk into a pile and opened The Mystery of the Phaestos Disk, the pipe between his lips bobbed like a conjurer’s wand. “Amazing.” He gazed at a full-page photo of the artifact. His finger traced across the spiral of symbols: plants, warriors, trees, faces, animals, temples. “Clearly not Egyptian hieroglyphs, and not cuneiform.”

Gatsby leaned over the desk. “It’s dated about 1850 BCE, the same time that Linear B was coming into use.”

He frowned. “Remind me.”

“It’s a syllabic script, the proto-Greek that predated alphabetic Greek by several centuries. Michael Ventris and John Chadwick are credited with the decipherment, and their efforts were confirmed—supported, at least—by tablets inscribed in Cypriot and Linear B.”

“Something like decipherment of the Rosetta Stone?”

“In a way. It’s the same process. Writing the same message in differing scripts allows apples-to-apples translation.”

“What would proto-Greek look like?”

Gatsby reached across the desk, tugged the yellow notepad from his hand, turned it sideways, and sketched a series of symbols.

“Ai-ku-pi-ti-jo—the syllabic presentation of Aiguptios, translated as Egypt. About eighty symbols have been translated, but the jury’s still out on a few.”

“Impressive!”

She looked down at the photo of the Disk. “Impressive will be when I crack the symbolic language of Disk, if it even is a language. Archeolinguists around the globe will shit themselves.”

Roman’s eyebrows popped up as he stood to walk toward the bookshelf. “While singing your name or cursing you?”

“It’s the last undeciphered script, Roman.” The heel of her boot connected to the floor with a bam. “The last bloody one! You know what that means!”

He nodded. “Some epigrapher’s brass ring.”

“It’s an Aeon, the most prestigious award in antiquities sciences. Big Athens party, funding for life, the whole shebang.”

He turned on her with a frown. “My god. You’re that determined to follow in her footsteps?”

Her hand dropped to the notepad, but rather than releasing the pen, her fingers tightened until they flushed. “We both know—”

(What is YOUR place in history?!)

 “—that there’s no second place in this field, Roman.”

A buzz broke her thoughts. She fumbled in the pocket of the backpack for her smartphone, and a message appeared on the screen.

The ancient chakra did align

To bring the argonauts new wine

Captives now with shields do

Escape the thistles 242

Hark a dog can bark in vain

The lioness in endless chain

Άνοιξε τα μάτια σου στην αλήθεια
Ο γραφέας είναι ψεύτης
Ο κόσμος εξαπατήθηκε

“What…what the bloody hell is this?”

Roman walked over and stood at her side, and her eyes flew over the words. “Chakra is Sanskrit for wheel. Argonaut, shield, thistle, dog...” She stared at the screen, mouth working silently, until Roman poked her arm.

“What is it?”

“These are symbols from the Disk. The Godart sign names!” Her breath hitched. “Some researchers refer to the Disk as ‘the wheel,’ and two forty-two is the total number of symbols.”

Roman swiped at his forehead with the back of a brown hand. “Good lord.”

“But these three lines are Greek.” She studied the words and mouthed the words slowly as she translated. “Open your eyes to the truth. The scribe is a liar. The world has been deceived.”

They glared at each other like predators.

“Has to be a prank. Some archeologist wannabe tracked down my cell number. Damn it!”

Roman leaned in and pointed at the screen. “Hang on, I think there’s more. Scroll down.”

As she scrolled with a fingertip, two lines rose into view.

M. AFFIATO

63A BREWER STREET W1F 0LA

They blurted in unison, “Soho?”

Gatsby jammed the phone into her backpack and slung the pack and her jacket over her shoulder. The heels of her boots slammed into the Persian rug and then pounded the oak flooring as she sprinted toward the door.

He leaped up to run after her. “Wait!”

The Volvo lurched as she sped down the M11 toward Soho, London’s district of ethnic restaurants and recording studios—the razzle dazzle of Carnaby Street, the sticky titillation of sex shops and strip clubs, and the thriving gay scene comingled with theater critics.

The scribe is a liar? The world has been deceived?

Her chest billowed as her fingers tightened on the steering wheel. Who has the balls to make cryptic, anonymous claims about the Disk? Is someone else as intent on it as I am?

A dark pang struck at her mind and gut at the same time. Or intent on me?